Recorder

MP3 Encoding

Using your commercial music CD's you can encode your own MP3 files to create an extensive Music Library.

  1. Click the Rec (Recorder) button on the Player, or choose the menu Window/Show Recorder to open the Recorder screen.

  2. Insert an audio CD in your CD-ROM drive.

  3. CDDB will read your CD and attempt to return track information. If successful, CDDB will fill in the Track Name, Artist Name, Album name, and Track Number. If CDDB does not return any information then that CD is not part of the CDDB database and you will need to manually enter in the Tag information. (Occasionally CDDB will return several versions of one CD and ask you to choose the correct one.) How to manually enter Track info.

  4. Click the Change button under Song File Path Format to choose the folder where your new files will be saved to.

  5. Check the boxes next to the tracks that you wish to record to MP3 files, and click the Start button.

  6. MusicMatch will start to record MP3 files from the music CD.

  7. At the bottom of the Recorder window you will see a progress indicator. When complete the indicator will be at 100%, and the track will be added to your Music Library.

Click here to learn about the Recorder Control Buttons.

There are many Recorder Settings to help you create an MP3 file that best suits your taste. Choose from a high compression, lower quality file for a smaller file size, or choose a low compression, higher quality file for CD quality sound.
 

Recording Settings
Adjust the Recorder settings from the menu Controls/Recorder/Settings

Recording Quality

CD Quality

  • MP3 ( 160 kbps 9:1 compression ratio) Creates an MP3 file with a very low compression, and with very high sound quality. For this setting, 1 minute of music will equal approximately 1.5 MB of disk space.

  • MP3 (128 kbps 11:1 compression ratio) Creates an MP3 file equal to CD quality sound. For this setting, 1 minute of music will equal approximately 1MB of disk space.

  • AIFF (uncompressed 1:1 compression ratio) Uses no compression is equal to CD quality sound. For this setting, 1 minute of music will equal approximate 10MB of disk space.

Near CD Quality

  • MP3 (96 kbps 15:1 compression ratio) Creates an MP3 file near the same quality as a music CD. For this setting, 1 minute of music will equal approximately 700k of disk space.

FM Radio Quality

  • MP3 ( 64 kbps 22:1 compression ratio) Creates an MP3 file with the same sound quality as an FM radio station. For this setting, 1 minute of music will equal approximately 400k of disk space.

Custom Quality

(Important Note: Tracks recorded below 24kbps may be recorded in mono, not stereo)

MP3 VBR - Variable Bit Rate encoding is an encoding method that ensures consistently high audio quality throughout an encoded file by making intelligent bit-allocation decisions during the encoding process.

Use VBR encoding when consistent audio quality is the top priority and predictable MP3 file size is not critical.

Choose a VBR setting from 1 to 100, low end being the lowest quality/highest compression and high end being the highest quality/lowest compression, to customize your recording.

Variable Bit Rate encoded files may be larger than Constant Bit Rate encoded files.

Not all players (Jukeboxes or other types of MP3 players) support Variable Bit Rate encoding, however the MusicMatch Jukebox and Winamp players both support this technology.

MP3 CBR - Constant Bit Rate Encoding is a method that ensures a consistent bit rate throughout an encoded file, potentially at the expense of audio quality and/or Encoder efficiency.

Use CBR encoding when you need to limit the size of the MP3 file or produce consistent file sizes.

Choose a CBR setting from 16kbps to 320kbps from the Record Settings screen, to customize your recording. Generally, files encoded faster than 128kbps, will have little or no sound quality improvement.

Constant Bit Rate encoded files may be smaller than Variable Bit Rate encoded files, of a comparable encoding speed, for example a song recorded in CBR at 128kbps may be smaller than the same song recorded in VBR at 50.

”MPEG Layer-3 audio coding technology licensed by Fraunhofer IIS http://www.iis.fhg.de/audio/ ”